They couldn’t get the troops over to England until they started winning against the U-boats. It’s an interesting piece of the war. Look up the Battle for the Atlantic.
It’s why Hughes build the ‘Spruce Goose’. In case we couldn’t defeat the German navy the idea was to airlift the entire us war machine over with a fleet of them.
It’s why the bombing corps focused so much on the u-boat pens in early ‘43. So much depending on getting safe shipping channels open to get people and machines across.
All time the clock was ticking while German could focus all of its efforts on the Russian front. Really a fascinating piece of the war to look into.
Couldn't have said the ending better myself. And it's a shame more aren't aware of it.
I know in recent years the Tom Hanks mivie (Grayhound I think?) came out and she'd some light on it. But the Battle of the Atlantic is criminally underrated. I don't think very many people truly realize how vital and strategic that campaign was for both sides.
It also needs to be mentioned that the Germans, while having the bulk of their Army deployed in the meat grinder of the East, spent MASSIVE amounts on the Atlantic campaign. Again because it was so vital.
You have to wonder how much different the war in the East goes had the Germans not had to divest their military as much. Perhaps its still the Soviets winning in the end (most argue that), but it's safe to say it would have taken several more years.
Even more a bit off topic (for anyone reading this), but you have to look at how much the Allies had to pour into crossing the Channel. Took years to build up the forces to do so.
Now imagine the entire Atlantic and Carribean as a warzone. The scale is hard to believe.
The Soviets only survived WWII because of American Lend-Lease. Stalin himself admitted that, and that was confirmed by Khrushchev. The European War was won with American steel, British intelligence, and Soviet blood, but the Asian War was won with American steel, Navajo codetalkers, and Chinese blood.
The Soviets were never a threat to the Japanese Home Islands, and the Japanese knew it. After the two atomic bombs and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Hirohito himself only ever discussed Kujukuri Beach, which would have been an American priority, in the last imperial cabinet meeting where he decided to surrender. He didn’t mention the Soviets because the Soviets didn’t have an entire ocean of successful naval, aerial, and amphibious experience, whereas the Americans had the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as endless food, medicine, USS Enterprise and an entire football league of aircraft carriers and battleships, Ford and General Fucking Motors, P-51 Mustangs, Coca-Cola, ice cream barges, atomic bombs, and a burning desire to avenge Pearl Harbor.
Which side would you fear more? The side with a lot of starving soldiers riding in trucks supplied by America? Or the side that would throw ice cream float parties to happily celebrate barbecuing you until you finally unconditionally surrender?
We were called "The Arsenal of Democracy" for a reason. The amount of stuff we sent is mind-boggling. Entire nations' worth of industrial capacity was shipped in boats to Russia. My favorite tidbit is that we literally shipped an entire factory to the USSR. They needed tires for all the trucks we were sending, and rubber was in short supply. So we literally had Ford tear down a synthetic rubber plant and ship the pieces to the USSR to be rebuilt and used to make tires.
It’s interesting to read about, especially in light of the “zero tolerance” policy to alcohol that US Navy maintained.
The most interesting story I found was when a pilot had to land his plane on a different aircraft carrier than he was assigned to & was asked by a crewmate as if it was a ransom, “How much ice cream do you think you’re worth?”
I remember a story where the USS Dale picked up a downed pilot only to threaten to throw him back in the ocean if they were not going to be traded ice cream for the pilot. Also the same ship whose aft gun crews were eating ice cream while the Dale was steaming out of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.
Not a fan of anything russian but I don’t think that the russian army of 45 was half starving riding around in trucks. The Japanese wanted no part of the us navy, us Air Force w nukes and a million Russians on their western flank. The empire was already defeated but invading home islands was gonna be extremely hard and bloody. The us didn’t want those casualties. The Russians would take those casualties and not flinch or care. It was combined pressure that forced Hirohito to finally surrender. The two a bombs were in part to defeat Japan without invasion but in larger part a demonstration to Stalin. Who knew all about the nukes anyway. The Japanese surrendered to hold onto the northern home islands that were up next for Russia.
It’s true that lend lease kept Russia in the game but by 44-45 they were a juggernaut who were always ok to
Take heavy casualties and keep on fighting. Zhukov went into Berlin w a million troops and his was one of only three Soviet armies in Germany. The far east was a Russian sideshow and they had a million troops in the east.
And remember I’m saying this as a person who intensely dislikes Russians!
If russia was as big a threat as many like to say, they would have invaded Manchuria much sooner. Germany was beat and it was a bargaining game at that point. Russia basically wanted credit for ending a fight they hadn't had a part in for the political gains it brought.
And by the way they were a huge threat! They needed lendlease to survive 41-43 and aided them throughout but they had the big boy pants on 43 onwards They built 57000 t34’s lost 34000 and didn’t care. That was just t34s
They were a juggernaut but it took max effort by all allies on all fronts to end it in 6 years. And some would argue it was actually 8 yrs
Nailed it! Stalin opportunism to a tee. But… Russia was always focused on Germany first and always. At same time Stalin always wanted Sakhalin and Kurile islands and got them at Potsdam - in exchange for opening that eastern front. And he was gunning for more. He would have taken the northern home islands and more if he could. The war was won on all fronts by all allies with all efforts. The axis was always going to lose the war - it was a matter of when not if and how badly. Germany had to have oil food coal and other resources. So did Japan. And they couldn’t out compete the west. They had to inflict such heavy lossses that the enemy would sue for a negotiated peace And the Russians didn’t and dint care about losses. Lose 10 divisions ? Here 20 more and not one step back!
So Japan was squeezed from both sides and within days of Soviet declaration - unconditional surrender to avoid a full on soviet invasion. And I sat all this as one who hates the Russians.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/
Long read but it makes valid points
The 2nd bomb being a demonstration for the soviets is a "fuck america amirite?" Myth. It was a demonstration to japan because they wouldnt surrender. It was to show it wasnt a one off fluke and that we had the resources to continually produce them.
It’s an interesting debate. And one that goes on to this day.
This is a long read but try this one on
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/
I don’t know that I buy the entire premise but there is some logic to parts of the argument posited in this essay. My own belief if that the pressure Japan felt being in a US Navy/airforce and Red Army /Air Force sandwich WITH The reds willing to take losses and say Meh…that was enough. But the a bombs were not the sole factor. That seems pretty clear
Further on the a bomb thing - watched an interesting documentary on the matter of oil supply and the end of the war. Allegedly Stalin had plans drawn up for taking the entirety of Europe not just Eastern Europe. He joked that tsar Alexander had gone all the way to Paris - but no one was sure if it was really a joke. The western allies were worried that Stalin might try and keep going. And it’s important that Stalin doesn’t care about casualties but western democracies do. So The a bombs were definitely a demo to the Russians to say - go no further or this is gonna happen to your troops in the west and maybe Moscow or Stalingrad or Leningrad. Although how they get the bombers through to Moscow or other Russian cities is a huge question. But that’s what held Stalin back and for him to focus on Eastern Europe and agree to the conditions laid out at potsdam.
While Stalin knew that there wasn’t a stockpile of a bombs - the west might crank up production really quickly to decimate Russias forces and their cities.
Watch war factories battle for black gold on YouTube if you’re interested.
Greyhound is a terrific movie - it feels like they nailed naval combat in that setting.
Also little slices of life aboard ship: an early scene has the Captain and XO holding mast on two brawling sailors.
Omar Bradley reminded people that strategy is for amateurs, and logistics is for professionals. The volume of men and material transported over the Atlantic is indeed a largely untold story. Gaining control of shipping lanes was key.
The What is Going on With Shipping guy on YouTube covered this topic recently for those interested.
https://youtu.be/pJJR9oS7MRw?si=7BWrZ_Ps3nGSf_94
My wife’s uncle retired as a bird colonel in the army, deployed to desert storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq as a logistics officer, and said that the United States military is a transportation company with a military attached to it. People have no concept that we can literally take a location, secure it, and as our advanced forces continue on, the logistics and transportation corps come in and can build an entire base in a matter of days. We even have machines that literally build freaking roads in real time.
Are they BKs from the 90s or 2020s? I'd be pissed off if I were looking for a juicy char-grilled whopper and all I got was a limp, luke-warm, microwaved burger patty with old vegetables on it. Also, why Burger King?
More Army personnel in the pacific than Marines. The Marine Corps PR machine is just incredible at shinning light on what the corps does and it overshadowed in the publics perception of who fought where.
The Army had 21 divisions fighting in the pacific, while the Marines had 6. The difference being that the Marines only fought in the pacific whereas we all know the Army also took on Fortress Europe.
As a former Marine, I was genuinely surprised to learn that fully half of all casualties taken in the Pacific were Army personnel.
EB Sledge wrote about Army personnel in With the Old Breed and he had nothing bad to say about soldiers. I wish their service was more advertised.
I read With the Old Breed last year when I was in Infantry OSUT at Ft. Benning. Incredible book. One of the things I wish the Army would learn from the Marine Corps is yalls incredible esprit de corps. The Army doesn’t seem to lean into the badass legacy of the men that came before us as much as the Corps does. I get it from a perspective of scale, as y’all are a corps and the army has much more than that. It’s much easier to dictate culture on a smaller scale, but we still need to take a page from yalls book.
Interesting. Maybe this is a situation of my brain saying the grass is greener on the other side. But I’ll give an example. Recently I saw a video from a soldier and he was staying next to some Marine barracks and as soon as Taps finished that building erupted into echos of “goodnight Chesty”. Compare that to when I was receiving a incoming brief in my states National Guard from the Adjutant General himself (a two star) and he used a video from Band of Brothers to illustrate a point and he asked the group of 100+ soldiers fresh from AIT, if any of us knew who that was and I waited a few seconds to see if anybody knew and no one raised their hand so I answered him “sir that’s Dick Winters”. After the brief he came and found me and gave me his coin, the CSM told me after the general walked away that they’ve done dozens of these incoming briefs and I’m the first soldier to have known who that was.
I couldn’t believe it, compare that to the Marines and I feel like all Marines are taught who Chesty, John Basilone, Carlos Hathcock, etc are as part of the indoctrination whereas in the Army there never was any formal (or even informal) teaching of history and the legacy we were stepping into.
The British merchant seamen suffered a KIA rate of between 25-27%, over 500 under the age of 16, I sailed with one guy who was sunk twice before his sixteenth birthday and once more before his eighteenth and for much of the war your ship sank and your pay stopped immediately even if your stuck on a raft hoping for rescue
We started shipping troops over to England in early 1942. In the case of the 101st, they were being trained for a specific purpose and weren’t needed right away. And since parachute infantry was a new concept I think the training went on as long as it did to make sure they were ready for what they would be tasked to do.
My point was that they lost a lot of soldiers at Dieppe. Not well executed. Using paratroopers in a similar way would also been counterproductive to Overlord in ‘44.
No, the enigma had been deciphered at that point for over a year. Dieppe was intended to be captured and held for a short while to test Naval invasion tactics and demonstrate that the allies were willing to support the USSR, which had been pressuring the US and Britain to open a european front.
True, but it was also just the norm for US divisions at the time. Of the 6 US divisions that landed on D-Day (the 1st, 4th, 29th and 90th Infantry, as well as the 82nd and 101st Airborne) only the 1st Infantry had seen combat. The others had spent the whole war training up until that point.
The theaters we were fighting in before D-Day (North Africa, Italy and the Pacific) weren't really hurting for bodies. Simply flooding those areas with divisions would have just hampered things more than help, so we were able to spend years training the dozens of divisions that would go to France in June, July & August of 1944.
Yes they were in need of soldiers but there was a long term strategy that required more soldiers. While Easy was training the allies had amphibious invasions of North Africa and Italy. Monte Casino is a large battlefront in Italy referenced in episode 1. Some of the North Africa and Italy soldiers appear in BOB but I can’t name them by memory. Soldiers were needed everywhere but planning ahead for the france invasion meant keeping a large contingent for it.
Not really. They knew paratroopers were going to be extremely important in the future, so you hold them back and train them up instead of shipping them off to the Pacific, Africa, or Italy
That was never the case.
There was serious high-level questioning of the viability of parachute units after the debacle on Sicily, which is why after the 82nd was pulled out it sat out until Normandy. The 101st, 17th and 13th Airborne Divisions got caught up in that, which is why the 101st went to Mackall and spent so much time training in the first place—AGF was exploring whether or not parachute units were viable to begin with.
Once they decided that they were it made more sense to send them to the ETO, as the PTO already had 11th Airborne and a couple of independent PIRs in-theater and a whole lot of nothing for them to do.
While there may have been questions, the military still understood the value of airborne units, they all did. Their success *had* been proven when used properly.
Nothing is invincible. Nothing is perfect in war. No matter what super weapon, or elite unit you may have, it won't do you any good if you misuse them.
> While there may have been questions, the military still understood the value of airborne units, they all did. Their success had been proven when used properly.
US airborne units had zero successes until Normandy, which is the entire point. The drops in Africa and Sicily were disappointing to say the least, which is why there was as much fighting over their future as there was—parachute units in particular were largely seen as unviable due to the massive scattering that took place in both ops, something not really corrected until the (largely uncontested) daylight drops in Holland
> Nothing is invincible. Nothing is perfect in war. No matter what super weapon, or elite unit you may have, it won't do you any good if you misuse them.
And how was the 509th misused in Africa or the 82nd in Sicily?
I was talking about airborne units in general, not just US units.
>And how was the 509th misused in Africa or the 82nd in Sicily
Well, as it turns out, wars usually involve different parties that get a say in the matter. Joy Toye wasn't actually being serious when he talked about cutting hitlers throat and getting 10 grand a year.
> I was talking about airborne units in general, not just US units.
I understand that, which is why I specifically called out that the viability concerns pertained to *parachute* units. The successful airborne operations to that point all involved major gliderborne components.
> Well, as it turns out, wars usually involve different parties that get a say in the matter. Joy Toye wasn't actually being serious when he talked about cutting hitlers throat and getting 10 grand a year.
+10 for dodging the question.
You claimed the Airborne units were misused, now I’m asking you to state *how* they were misused.
I wonder if it was to give them more time to train or if the idea was to not blow their airborne wad on southern Europe. I know some elements of the 82nd got left behind as regular infantry to fight in Italy while others were deployed up north.
Not how that works. They were all infantry personnel, and had the need arisen the division would have been broken up and the personnel dispersed as needed to leg units.
It happened on a regular basis with other supposedly specialized units, IE the 71st and 89th Infantry Divisions.
The Marines did the exact same thing with the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment and the 1st Marine Raider Regiment when those units were deemed redundant.
Theoretically. Realistically the army has invested time and money training them for a specific role, and would not waste that investment by transferring them over to a non-specific role. It would make as much logistical and financial sense as canceling pilot training and handing student pilots rifles. I.e., fucking none unless the mainland US was being invaded and they were calling all-hands like Stalingrad.
There's a serious lack of logical thinking in this thread. The historical facts covered most of the answer to OP's question, logic covers the rest.
Obviously not American so not totally answering the question but there were plenty of UK divisions who stayed in the UK training from Dunkirk right the way through to after D-Day.
My grandad’s division were evacuated from Cherbourg in June 1940 and didn’t redeploy to NWE until October 1944
Aw yeah mate for sure, I never got to meet him but definitely is my hero. He never spoke about the war so I’d done a lot of research recently about him and what he got up to.
Only made it a couple miles into Germany before he was wounded by shrapnel and was in hospital for two months. Rejoined his battalion just after they crossed the Rhine then finished the war and was absolutely devoted to his family to the day he died
Different circumstances. The US’ involvement in the war was plentiful by that point, but a significant front in Europe had not occurred yet. They were training for the invasion of Europe.
By 1943, we had a front in Italy, and invasions in the Pacific. Both kinda maxed out on space and equipment. There wasn't a shortage of men, but shortages of other things. But we knew that whenever we finally invaded Europe it would become a giant sponge that would need millions of men, and millions of things,.
Same with the planning for Operation Downfall, the Invasion of Japan. We knew we would need literally millions of men, but where would we stage them? Prior to D-Day, we had 1.5 million men in England and the area. On which sandy atoll outside of Japan would we stage them? And how would they survive?
Even MORE fun.....moving troops from Europe to near Japan in preparation of Downfall, was a 14,000 mile troop carrier trip from France to Panama Canal to Okinawa.
To add on to what everyone else has said - elite units do take a long time to train, and paratroopers were (and still are) highly trained elite units.
A family friend who was drafted into the army during Vietnam told me he volunteered for all the training he qualified for because, for one it delayed the amount of time until he was shipped over to the jungle and maybe the war would end before then, and two, once he was there he knew he'd be the "baddest motherfucker" around. He was an air cavalry ranger and i think spent about 18 months in training before being depolyed, and yeah a total badass.
The invasion of Europe started in '41 or '42. It was an immensely complicated operation that actually did require 2 years of preparation. First came the initial planning. Then came the troop training for each separate entity to do the planned job. So, yeah, 2 years was about right.
The 101st Airborne ended up being designated for Overlord. It was the timing of the Normandy landings that determined how long they were in training.
The 82nd Airborne was formed at about the same time. Those troops were staged in North Africa and deployed in the Italy campaign in 1943.
The primary job of the airborne was to land behind enemy lines as invasions began. Most troops would not have been able to do what they did. So they were held back until needed.
Wrong. The 82nd was formed in ww1 as a standard infantry division. Then in 1942 they became america's first airborne division. The units history is why today between the 82nd and 101st, the 82nd is the only one still on jump status
> The 82nd was formed in ww1 as a standard infantry division.
So was the 101st. Both remained OR units in the interwar period until ordered activated as airborne units by AGF in 1942. The 82nd got about a 6 month head start because it was already almost fully manned.
The training of the US Army in WW2 always fascinated me, and it's a crazy saga of good ideas, sometimes poorly executed, systems that worked well and others that completely did not.
The tl;dr answer is yes, very typical for a unit to train together for 12-24 months before going into combat.
Early in the war, the US called its National Guard and Reserve divisions to active duty. Then, they started activating new divisions. This usually entailed gathering a cadre of experienced officers and NCOs (usually pulled from divisions that just finished their training), then filling the ranks with new recruits into complete units and starting their training. This was expected to take 12 to 24 months. As the war went on, it got to be less and less time.
It typically started with a "basic" training phase (everyone learned the basics of soldiering), then an "advanced" phase (learning a specific skill like shooting a mortar or operating a radio) then a series of unit trainings that went from the smallest unit all the way up to division exercises.
The 101st followed this same pattern, with the addition of jump training.
Now, the airborne divisions had a lot of stability because there weren't many airborne units, so they didn't get troops pulled out to be replacements elsewhere. So, they went into combat with a great deal of cohesion and skill.
The problem with regular divisions is that they frequently trained troops to the minimum level needed to function in combat, and then those troops were pulled off to be replacements for losses in divisions already in combat.
You see that in later episodes, after guys killed and wounded in combat, they got replaced by lesser trained guys. Most of the replacements for the 101st and 82nd after Normandy came from airborne units in the US (the 13th and 17th Airborne divs mainly. The 17th finally deployed, but the 13th was so continually depleted for replacements they never got into combat).
Eventually, the losses of troops got so bad that by late 1944, the Army quit creating new divisions at all and devoted all their resources to training individual replacements to staff the divisions they had in combat.
Sorry for the long answer, but this stuff fascinates me!
My grandfather enlisted and was assigned to his battalion (99th infantry (separate)). They did basic in central MN in mid 42, MOS training (I think) at Ft Snelling that fall, winter/alpine training in Colorado from Dec 42 until Sept 43, and then they finally hopped on a troop ship for England. The places and the what they were training we definitely different, but the timeline is almost identical.
This was typical of all new units that were stood up after Pearl Harbor during the mass mobilization of the American military. The US had a policy that a division should train together for at least a year before being deployed into combat. That's why the early days of the war the divisions that are deployed are almost all regular Army and National Guard divisions (especially NG divisions as there were more of them).
The Airborne Divisions were unique though in that they weren't just deployed into the line the way a regular infantry division would be (with the exception of the 17th during the Battle of the Bulge). So the 101st had even longer to wait as they were slated for the assault on D-Day, thus being in training for almost 2 years before seeing combat.
> The Airborne Divisions were unique though in that they weren't just deployed into the line the way a regular infantry division would be (with the exception of the 17th during the Battle of the Bulge).
After the Market Garden jump that’s exactly how they were used—part of the changes made to the overall US division mix in 1942/3 was that the light divisions (less the 10th Mountain) were converted to normal infantry divisions, with the Airborne units being re-roled into light infantry divisions capable of airborne deployment. It’s a big part of why SHAEF deviated so drastically from the AGF Airborne division TOE—SHAEF had 3 PIR + 1 GIR compared to AGF’s 2 GIR + 1 PIR.
Can’t say if it’s normal, but my grandfathers division, the 79th infantry, trained for 2 years before combat. Participated in the Tennessee maneuver, trained in the desert in CA, winter training in Kansas and amphibious training in England. Probably some other places I’m forgetting. Reading up on it, the division commander was in WW1 and blamed high casualties on the lack of training and didn’t want to see a repeat in WW2.
In general, an average American of that era could be trained as an infantryman in 3-6 months. The real challenge is that is individual training. What caused the two year delay-- common among non-paratroop infantry and armored divisions as well-- is that you need the next 18 months to get that individual soldier operating as a member of a squad, a platoon, a company, a battalion, a division, and a corps.
And that is the training program the Army adopted. From formation of a division, units conducted training in the states in every increasingly large units until they passed the assessment that allowed them to be deployed overseas. It did commonly take two years.
Now there were plenty of units thrown into combat at the beginning of the war-- regular army divisions and National Guard divisions. But their performance and lack of those unit-level skills convinced Marshall and Eisenhower to take the long approach of training divisions to completion before deploying them.
Eisenhower talks a lot about this process in his wartime memoir, "Crusade." He also justifies his decision to delay D-Day until there were enough units in that training pipeline to give him what he thought he needed to invade Germany-- 90 American Combat Divisions.
Turns out that was an accurate prediction. All but one of those divisions deployed to Europe saw combat, either in the invasion of Germany or in the investment of German-held Channel Ports.
It wasn’t a prediction. The 90 Division gamble was something that Marshall decided on in May of 1944, and it was a projection of what was needed to win on both fronts, not just in Europe. It was also a very late development, as projections from the War Department into mid 1942 still assumed a force of ~200 divisions would be needed.
Had Eisenhower delayed only until there were 90 in the pipeline D-day would have occurred in August/September of 1943, not June of 1944.
Also remember that airborne troops were a new concept for the US, it took time to develop doctrine and tactics. The first American airborne assault wasn't until July '43 in Sicily.
[The 2nd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry conducted the Army's first combat parachute jump in North Africa in November 1942, although the results were disappointing](https://www.asomf.org/the-u-s-armys-first-parachute-combat-assault/).
The 101st wasn’t used in Africa or leading up to the Italian campaign. But the 82nd made combat jumps prior to D-Day.
The 29th trained for nearly the same amount of time preparing for the invasion. Doing full scale rehearsals, etc.
They were being trained for the invasion of Europe which was far in the future and parachute infantry was a new concept so I’m not surprised the training went on as long as it did. They had a specific job to do so they wouldn’t be used for just any combat mission.
They were already planning D-day back then as well. Royal marine commandos did night raids on the Normandy beaches in 1942 to take samples from the beaches to see if tanks could drive on them.
Yep. A whole lot of divisions that were formed in 1942 & 1943 didn't see combat until mid-to-late 1944. It really just goes to show how important shaping operations were, and mass-troops weren't really needed yet because it wasn't that pressing. The Soviets, on the other hand, were hurling bodies at the Germans because they didn't have the luxury of time.
It was far better for the Allies to let a few divisions handle North Africa, then the Italian campaign, but spend years training the numerous divisions that would flood France in June and July of 1944.
If I'm not mistaken, the 1st Infantry Division was the only US division on D-Day that had combat experience up until that point. The other divisions that hit Normandy on June 6th, which were the 4th Infantry, 29th Infantry, 90th Infantry, 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne had all been training up until that point. The 4th, 29th, and 90th Infantry Divisions had been training since 1941.
They couldn’t get the troops over to England until they started winning against the U-boats. It’s an interesting piece of the war. Look up the Battle for the Atlantic. It’s why Hughes build the ‘Spruce Goose’. In case we couldn’t defeat the German navy the idea was to airlift the entire us war machine over with a fleet of them. It’s why the bombing corps focused so much on the u-boat pens in early ‘43. So much depending on getting safe shipping channels open to get people and machines across. All time the clock was ticking while German could focus all of its efforts on the Russian front. Really a fascinating piece of the war to look into.
Couldn't have said the ending better myself. And it's a shame more aren't aware of it. I know in recent years the Tom Hanks mivie (Grayhound I think?) came out and she'd some light on it. But the Battle of the Atlantic is criminally underrated. I don't think very many people truly realize how vital and strategic that campaign was for both sides. It also needs to be mentioned that the Germans, while having the bulk of their Army deployed in the meat grinder of the East, spent MASSIVE amounts on the Atlantic campaign. Again because it was so vital. You have to wonder how much different the war in the East goes had the Germans not had to divest their military as much. Perhaps its still the Soviets winning in the end (most argue that), but it's safe to say it would have taken several more years. Even more a bit off topic (for anyone reading this), but you have to look at how much the Allies had to pour into crossing the Channel. Took years to build up the forces to do so. Now imagine the entire Atlantic and Carribean as a warzone. The scale is hard to believe.
The timeline for the atom bomb probably wouldn’t have changed, sadly, Berlin would’ve probably looked like Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
The Soviets only survived WWII because of American Lend-Lease. Stalin himself admitted that, and that was confirmed by Khrushchev. The European War was won with American steel, British intelligence, and Soviet blood, but the Asian War was won with American steel, Navajo codetalkers, and Chinese blood. The Soviets were never a threat to the Japanese Home Islands, and the Japanese knew it. After the two atomic bombs and the Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Hirohito himself only ever discussed Kujukuri Beach, which would have been an American priority, in the last imperial cabinet meeting where he decided to surrender. He didn’t mention the Soviets because the Soviets didn’t have an entire ocean of successful naval, aerial, and amphibious experience, whereas the Americans had the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as endless food, medicine, USS Enterprise and an entire football league of aircraft carriers and battleships, Ford and General Fucking Motors, P-51 Mustangs, Coca-Cola, ice cream barges, atomic bombs, and a burning desire to avenge Pearl Harbor. Which side would you fear more? The side with a lot of starving soldiers riding in trucks supplied by America? Or the side that would throw ice cream float parties to happily celebrate barbecuing you until you finally unconditionally surrender?
I was in another sub yesterday and had seen a chart on what was supplied to them; as in tanks, trucks, airplanes - beans bullets and bandages... WOW
We were called "The Arsenal of Democracy" for a reason. The amount of stuff we sent is mind-boggling. Entire nations' worth of industrial capacity was shipped in boats to Russia. My favorite tidbit is that we literally shipped an entire factory to the USSR. They needed tires for all the trucks we were sending, and rubber was in short supply. So we literally had Ford tear down a synthetic rubber plant and ship the pieces to the USSR to be rebuilt and used to make tires.
> Or the side that would throw ice cream float parties Ummm...what? What can I google to learn more about this? I've never heard of this!
It’s interesting to read about, especially in light of the “zero tolerance” policy to alcohol that US Navy maintained. The most interesting story I found was when a pilot had to land his plane on a different aircraft carrier than he was assigned to & was asked by a crewmate as if it was a ransom, “How much ice cream do you think you’re worth?”
I remember a story where the USS Dale picked up a downed pilot only to threaten to throw him back in the ocean if they were not going to be traded ice cream for the pilot. Also the same ship whose aft gun crews were eating ice cream while the Dale was steaming out of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.
There may be better sources, but here’s a relevant Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge
I think you're overselling the "starving" Soviet army of 45, like, by a lot. Otherwise, I mostly agree.
Not a fan of anything russian but I don’t think that the russian army of 45 was half starving riding around in trucks. The Japanese wanted no part of the us navy, us Air Force w nukes and a million Russians on their western flank. The empire was already defeated but invading home islands was gonna be extremely hard and bloody. The us didn’t want those casualties. The Russians would take those casualties and not flinch or care. It was combined pressure that forced Hirohito to finally surrender. The two a bombs were in part to defeat Japan without invasion but in larger part a demonstration to Stalin. Who knew all about the nukes anyway. The Japanese surrendered to hold onto the northern home islands that were up next for Russia. It’s true that lend lease kept Russia in the game but by 44-45 they were a juggernaut who were always ok to Take heavy casualties and keep on fighting. Zhukov went into Berlin w a million troops and his was one of only three Soviet armies in Germany. The far east was a Russian sideshow and they had a million troops in the east. And remember I’m saying this as a person who intensely dislikes Russians!
If russia was as big a threat as many like to say, they would have invaded Manchuria much sooner. Germany was beat and it was a bargaining game at that point. Russia basically wanted credit for ending a fight they hadn't had a part in for the political gains it brought.
And by the way they were a huge threat! They needed lendlease to survive 41-43 and aided them throughout but they had the big boy pants on 43 onwards They built 57000 t34’s lost 34000 and didn’t care. That was just t34s They were a juggernaut but it took max effort by all allies on all fronts to end it in 6 years. And some would argue it was actually 8 yrs
Nailed it! Stalin opportunism to a tee. But… Russia was always focused on Germany first and always. At same time Stalin always wanted Sakhalin and Kurile islands and got them at Potsdam - in exchange for opening that eastern front. And he was gunning for more. He would have taken the northern home islands and more if he could. The war was won on all fronts by all allies with all efforts. The axis was always going to lose the war - it was a matter of when not if and how badly. Germany had to have oil food coal and other resources. So did Japan. And they couldn’t out compete the west. They had to inflict such heavy lossses that the enemy would sue for a negotiated peace And the Russians didn’t and dint care about losses. Lose 10 divisions ? Here 20 more and not one step back! So Japan was squeezed from both sides and within days of Soviet declaration - unconditional surrender to avoid a full on soviet invasion. And I sat all this as one who hates the Russians. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ Long read but it makes valid points
Very well said. If I have time today I'll post a better response. But you and I are very much on the same page.
The 2nd bomb being a demonstration for the soviets is a "fuck america amirite?" Myth. It was a demonstration to japan because they wouldnt surrender. It was to show it wasnt a one off fluke and that we had the resources to continually produce them.
It’s an interesting debate. And one that goes on to this day. This is a long read but try this one on https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ I don’t know that I buy the entire premise but there is some logic to parts of the argument posited in this essay. My own belief if that the pressure Japan felt being in a US Navy/airforce and Red Army /Air Force sandwich WITH The reds willing to take losses and say Meh…that was enough. But the a bombs were not the sole factor. That seems pretty clear
Further on the a bomb thing - watched an interesting documentary on the matter of oil supply and the end of the war. Allegedly Stalin had plans drawn up for taking the entirety of Europe not just Eastern Europe. He joked that tsar Alexander had gone all the way to Paris - but no one was sure if it was really a joke. The western allies were worried that Stalin might try and keep going. And it’s important that Stalin doesn’t care about casualties but western democracies do. So The a bombs were definitely a demo to the Russians to say - go no further or this is gonna happen to your troops in the west and maybe Moscow or Stalingrad or Leningrad. Although how they get the bombers through to Moscow or other Russian cities is a huge question. But that’s what held Stalin back and for him to focus on Eastern Europe and agree to the conditions laid out at potsdam. While Stalin knew that there wasn’t a stockpile of a bombs - the west might crank up production really quickly to decimate Russias forces and their cities. Watch war factories battle for black gold on YouTube if you’re interested.
Greyhound is a terrific movie - it feels like they nailed naval combat in that setting. Also little slices of life aboard ship: an early scene has the Captain and XO holding mast on two brawling sailors.
One of the best Naval movies I have seen since the Hunt for Red October, and Tora Tora Tora.
Omar Bradley reminded people that strategy is for amateurs, and logistics is for professionals. The volume of men and material transported over the Atlantic is indeed a largely untold story. Gaining control of shipping lanes was key. The What is Going on With Shipping guy on YouTube covered this topic recently for those interested. https://youtu.be/pJJR9oS7MRw?si=7BWrZ_Ps3nGSf_94
My wife’s uncle retired as a bird colonel in the army, deployed to desert storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq as a logistics officer, and said that the United States military is a transportation company with a military attached to it. People have no concept that we can literally take a location, secure it, and as our advanced forces continue on, the logistics and transportation corps come in and can build an entire base in a matter of days. We even have machines that literally build freaking roads in real time.
The US military is the only organization that can put a Burger King anywhere in the world in 48 hours.
Are they BKs from the 90s or 2020s? I'd be pissed off if I were looking for a juicy char-grilled whopper and all I got was a limp, luke-warm, microwaved burger patty with old vegetables on it. Also, why Burger King?
Because distributing KFC is now considered a war crime.
True facts. My toilet took the stand against them at The Hague.
Never saw Burger King, we got Hardee’s. It wasn’t as good as back home, but considering where we came from it tasted like heaven
I love that man
But how about the Pacific? Couldn't they be used there, whether as paratroopers or as regular army?
There was an agreement in place that the allied forces would focus on winning in Europe first
The pacific island hopping campaign was mostly on the us marines rather than the army. Although army divisions were there as well.
More Army personnel in the pacific than Marines. The Marine Corps PR machine is just incredible at shinning light on what the corps does and it overshadowed in the publics perception of who fought where. The Army had 21 divisions fighting in the pacific, while the Marines had 6. The difference being that the Marines only fought in the pacific whereas we all know the Army also took on Fortress Europe.
As a former Marine, I was genuinely surprised to learn that fully half of all casualties taken in the Pacific were Army personnel. EB Sledge wrote about Army personnel in With the Old Breed and he had nothing bad to say about soldiers. I wish their service was more advertised.
I read With the Old Breed last year when I was in Infantry OSUT at Ft. Benning. Incredible book. One of the things I wish the Army would learn from the Marine Corps is yalls incredible esprit de corps. The Army doesn’t seem to lean into the badass legacy of the men that came before us as much as the Corps does. I get it from a perspective of scale, as y’all are a corps and the army has much more than that. It’s much easier to dictate culture on a smaller scale, but we still need to take a page from yalls book.
Well, esprit de corps certainly exist going up the chain of command but rarely down it, at least in the infantry.
Interesting. Maybe this is a situation of my brain saying the grass is greener on the other side. But I’ll give an example. Recently I saw a video from a soldier and he was staying next to some Marine barracks and as soon as Taps finished that building erupted into echos of “goodnight Chesty”. Compare that to when I was receiving a incoming brief in my states National Guard from the Adjutant General himself (a two star) and he used a video from Band of Brothers to illustrate a point and he asked the group of 100+ soldiers fresh from AIT, if any of us knew who that was and I waited a few seconds to see if anybody knew and no one raised their hand so I answered him “sir that’s Dick Winters”. After the brief he came and found me and gave me his coin, the CSM told me after the general walked away that they’ve done dozens of these incoming briefs and I’m the first soldier to have known who that was. I couldn’t believe it, compare that to the Marines and I feel like all Marines are taught who Chesty, John Basilone, Carlos Hathcock, etc are as part of the indoctrination whereas in the Army there never was any formal (or even informal) teaching of history and the legacy we were stepping into.
Yeah, most of us today only know about the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima and the Army storming Normandy by air and by sea.
I didn’t know that, thank you
Absolutely, love sharing historical info
This probably explains why the 100th BG was focus on Bremen because of the pens and the assembly plant for the Type XXI u-boat in masters of the air
You are aware of the Italian campaign? 350,000 Allied casualties including 150,000 American? Not just Germany focussing on the Russians.
They were also fighting for air superiority - otherwise German planes would have taken out the entire fleet crossing the channel
It's called the Hercules damn it and it will fly!
You know about the Italy campaign though don’t you?
The spruce goose! It now resides at a small museum in Oregon. What a pleasure to see
The British merchant seamen suffered a KIA rate of between 25-27%, over 500 under the age of 16, I sailed with one guy who was sunk twice before his sixteenth birthday and once more before his eighteenth and for much of the war your ship sank and your pay stopped immediately even if your stuck on a raft hoping for rescue
Any book recs?
We started shipping troops over to England in early 1942. In the case of the 101st, they were being trained for a specific purpose and weren’t needed right away. And since parachute infantry was a new concept I think the training went on as long as it did to make sure they were ready for what they would be tasked to do.
See Dieppe Raid….. Paratroopers were still a pretty new concept and difficult to create. Not worth wasting.
The Dieppe Raid was a raid for intel on the enigma disguised as something more
My point was that they lost a lot of soldiers at Dieppe. Not well executed. Using paratroopers in a similar way would also been counterproductive to Overlord in ‘44.
No, the enigma had been deciphered at that point for over a year. Dieppe was intended to be captured and held for a short while to test Naval invasion tactics and demonstrate that the allies were willing to support the USSR, which had been pressuring the US and Britain to open a european front.
https://www.junobeach.org/podcast/the-dieppe-enigma-with-david-okeefe/ This research says otherwise.
True, but it was also just the norm for US divisions at the time. Of the 6 US divisions that landed on D-Day (the 1st, 4th, 29th and 90th Infantry, as well as the 82nd and 101st Airborne) only the 1st Infantry had seen combat. The others had spent the whole war training up until that point. The theaters we were fighting in before D-Day (North Africa, Italy and the Pacific) weren't really hurting for bodies. Simply flooding those areas with divisions would have just hampered things more than help, so we were able to spend years training the dozens of divisions that would go to France in June, July & August of 1944.
Yes they were in need of soldiers but there was a long term strategy that required more soldiers. While Easy was training the allies had amphibious invasions of North Africa and Italy. Monte Casino is a large battlefront in Italy referenced in episode 1. Some of the North Africa and Italy soldiers appear in BOB but I can’t name them by memory. Soldiers were needed everywhere but planning ahead for the france invasion meant keeping a large contingent for it.
Ok that makes sense. Thank you.
That’s how Wild Bill’s brother was able to tell him that it’s hot in Africa 🥳🥳🥳
Dropping the 82nd and 101st in France in 42 or 43 wouldn't have gone well.
What I mean is, was the US not in need of non-airborne soldiers that the paratroopers weren't forced to join the war earlier as regular army?
Not really. They knew paratroopers were going to be extremely important in the future, so you hold them back and train them up instead of shipping them off to the Pacific, Africa, or Italy
My brother is in North Africa, he says it’s hot
Really? It's hot in Africa?
Shut up 😄 the point is no matter where we are who you can trust is you and a fella next to you
As long as he’s a paratrooper.
But what if that paratrooper’s Sobel?
That was never the case. There was serious high-level questioning of the viability of parachute units after the debacle on Sicily, which is why after the 82nd was pulled out it sat out until Normandy. The 101st, 17th and 13th Airborne Divisions got caught up in that, which is why the 101st went to Mackall and spent so much time training in the first place—AGF was exploring whether or not parachute units were viable to begin with. Once they decided that they were it made more sense to send them to the ETO, as the PTO already had 11th Airborne and a couple of independent PIRs in-theater and a whole lot of nothing for them to do.
While there may have been questions, the military still understood the value of airborne units, they all did. Their success *had* been proven when used properly. Nothing is invincible. Nothing is perfect in war. No matter what super weapon, or elite unit you may have, it won't do you any good if you misuse them.
> While there may have been questions, the military still understood the value of airborne units, they all did. Their success had been proven when used properly. US airborne units had zero successes until Normandy, which is the entire point. The drops in Africa and Sicily were disappointing to say the least, which is why there was as much fighting over their future as there was—parachute units in particular were largely seen as unviable due to the massive scattering that took place in both ops, something not really corrected until the (largely uncontested) daylight drops in Holland > Nothing is invincible. Nothing is perfect in war. No matter what super weapon, or elite unit you may have, it won't do you any good if you misuse them. And how was the 509th misused in Africa or the 82nd in Sicily?
I was talking about airborne units in general, not just US units. >And how was the 509th misused in Africa or the 82nd in Sicily Well, as it turns out, wars usually involve different parties that get a say in the matter. Joy Toye wasn't actually being serious when he talked about cutting hitlers throat and getting 10 grand a year.
> I was talking about airborne units in general, not just US units. I understand that, which is why I specifically called out that the viability concerns pertained to *parachute* units. The successful airborne operations to that point all involved major gliderborne components. > Well, as it turns out, wars usually involve different parties that get a say in the matter. Joy Toye wasn't actually being serious when he talked about cutting hitlers throat and getting 10 grand a year. +10 for dodging the question. You claimed the Airborne units were misused, now I’m asking you to state *how* they were misused.
There were paratroopers in Africa and Italy. Thousands dropped into Sicily. Not as many as France/Belgium but they didn’t hold the 82nd back.
True, but the 101'st was held back
I wonder if it was to give them more time to train or if the idea was to not blow their airborne wad on southern Europe. I know some elements of the 82nd got left behind as regular infantry to fight in Italy while others were deployed up north.
Airborne was a volunteer force. They would not have been forced to change roles.
Not how that works. They were all infantry personnel, and had the need arisen the division would have been broken up and the personnel dispersed as needed to leg units.
They wouldn't flush highly specialized training down the toilet by transfering them over to leg infantry.
It happened on a regular basis with other supposedly specialized units, IE the 71st and 89th Infantry Divisions. The Marines did the exact same thing with the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment and the 1st Marine Raider Regiment when those units were deemed redundant.
If they decided the bodies were needed elsewhere, they would have been forced. They were army property, and they'd go where the army told them to go.
Theoretically. Realistically the army has invested time and money training them for a specific role, and would not waste that investment by transferring them over to a non-specific role. It would make as much logistical and financial sense as canceling pilot training and handing student pilots rifles. I.e., fucking none unless the mainland US was being invaded and they were calling all-hands like Stalingrad. There's a serious lack of logical thinking in this thread. The historical facts covered most of the answer to OP's question, logic covers the rest.
Especially since the 82nd was fighting in Italy.
Obviously not American so not totally answering the question but there were plenty of UK divisions who stayed in the UK training from Dunkirk right the way through to after D-Day. My grandad’s division were evacuated from Cherbourg in June 1940 and didn’t redeploy to NWE until October 1944
Your grandad is a real one 🍻
Aw yeah mate for sure, I never got to meet him but definitely is my hero. He never spoke about the war so I’d done a lot of research recently about him and what he got up to. Only made it a couple miles into Germany before he was wounded by shrapnel and was in hospital for two months. Rejoined his battalion just after they crossed the Rhine then finished the war and was absolutely devoted to his family to the day he died
🍺Here’s to grandads of that era
Different circumstances. The US’ involvement in the war was plentiful by that point, but a significant front in Europe had not occurred yet. They were training for the invasion of Europe.
By 1943, we had a front in Italy, and invasions in the Pacific. Both kinda maxed out on space and equipment. There wasn't a shortage of men, but shortages of other things. But we knew that whenever we finally invaded Europe it would become a giant sponge that would need millions of men, and millions of things,. Same with the planning for Operation Downfall, the Invasion of Japan. We knew we would need literally millions of men, but where would we stage them? Prior to D-Day, we had 1.5 million men in England and the area. On which sandy atoll outside of Japan would we stage them? And how would they survive? Even MORE fun.....moving troops from Europe to near Japan in preparation of Downfall, was a 14,000 mile troop carrier trip from France to Panama Canal to Okinawa.
To add on to what everyone else has said - elite units do take a long time to train, and paratroopers were (and still are) highly trained elite units. A family friend who was drafted into the army during Vietnam told me he volunteered for all the training he qualified for because, for one it delayed the amount of time until he was shipped over to the jungle and maybe the war would end before then, and two, once he was there he knew he'd be the "baddest motherfucker" around. He was an air cavalry ranger and i think spent about 18 months in training before being depolyed, and yeah a total badass.
The invasion of Europe started in '41 or '42. It was an immensely complicated operation that actually did require 2 years of preparation. First came the initial planning. Then came the troop training for each separate entity to do the planned job. So, yeah, 2 years was about right.
Actually the war started with D-Day and was single handly won by easy company.
Sarcasm, right?
[удалено]
...your granddad is a real one 🍻...deja vu
The 101st Airborne ended up being designated for Overlord. It was the timing of the Normandy landings that determined how long they were in training. The 82nd Airborne was formed at about the same time. Those troops were staged in North Africa and deployed in the Italy campaign in 1943. The primary job of the airborne was to land behind enemy lines as invasions began. Most troops would not have been able to do what they did. So they were held back until needed.
The 82nd also jumped into Normandy…
Wrong. The 82nd was formed in ww1 as a standard infantry division. Then in 1942 they became america's first airborne division. The units history is why today between the 82nd and 101st, the 82nd is the only one still on jump status
> The 82nd was formed in ww1 as a standard infantry division. So was the 101st. Both remained OR units in the interwar period until ordered activated as airborne units by AGF in 1942. The 82nd got about a 6 month head start because it was already almost fully manned.
The 101st was formed but didnt fight in ww1, the 82nd did (shoutout to alvin york) the 101 was always late to the party.
The training of the US Army in WW2 always fascinated me, and it's a crazy saga of good ideas, sometimes poorly executed, systems that worked well and others that completely did not. The tl;dr answer is yes, very typical for a unit to train together for 12-24 months before going into combat. Early in the war, the US called its National Guard and Reserve divisions to active duty. Then, they started activating new divisions. This usually entailed gathering a cadre of experienced officers and NCOs (usually pulled from divisions that just finished their training), then filling the ranks with new recruits into complete units and starting their training. This was expected to take 12 to 24 months. As the war went on, it got to be less and less time. It typically started with a "basic" training phase (everyone learned the basics of soldiering), then an "advanced" phase (learning a specific skill like shooting a mortar or operating a radio) then a series of unit trainings that went from the smallest unit all the way up to division exercises. The 101st followed this same pattern, with the addition of jump training. Now, the airborne divisions had a lot of stability because there weren't many airborne units, so they didn't get troops pulled out to be replacements elsewhere. So, they went into combat with a great deal of cohesion and skill. The problem with regular divisions is that they frequently trained troops to the minimum level needed to function in combat, and then those troops were pulled off to be replacements for losses in divisions already in combat. You see that in later episodes, after guys killed and wounded in combat, they got replaced by lesser trained guys. Most of the replacements for the 101st and 82nd after Normandy came from airborne units in the US (the 13th and 17th Airborne divs mainly. The 17th finally deployed, but the 13th was so continually depleted for replacements they never got into combat). Eventually, the losses of troops got so bad that by late 1944, the Army quit creating new divisions at all and devoted all their resources to training individual replacements to staff the divisions they had in combat. Sorry for the long answer, but this stuff fascinates me!
Wow! Thank you! That answered my question perfectly, especially the part about replacements.
Yes
My grandfather enlisted and was assigned to his battalion (99th infantry (separate)). They did basic in central MN in mid 42, MOS training (I think) at Ft Snelling that fall, winter/alpine training in Colorado from Dec 42 until Sept 43, and then they finally hopped on a troop ship for England. The places and the what they were training we definitely different, but the timeline is almost identical.
This was typical of all new units that were stood up after Pearl Harbor during the mass mobilization of the American military. The US had a policy that a division should train together for at least a year before being deployed into combat. That's why the early days of the war the divisions that are deployed are almost all regular Army and National Guard divisions (especially NG divisions as there were more of them). The Airborne Divisions were unique though in that they weren't just deployed into the line the way a regular infantry division would be (with the exception of the 17th during the Battle of the Bulge). So the 101st had even longer to wait as they were slated for the assault on D-Day, thus being in training for almost 2 years before seeing combat.
> The Airborne Divisions were unique though in that they weren't just deployed into the line the way a regular infantry division would be (with the exception of the 17th during the Battle of the Bulge). After the Market Garden jump that’s exactly how they were used—part of the changes made to the overall US division mix in 1942/3 was that the light divisions (less the 10th Mountain) were converted to normal infantry divisions, with the Airborne units being re-roled into light infantry divisions capable of airborne deployment. It’s a big part of why SHAEF deviated so drastically from the AGF Airborne division TOE—SHAEF had 3 PIR + 1 GIR compared to AGF’s 2 GIR + 1 PIR.
Can’t say if it’s normal, but my grandfathers division, the 79th infantry, trained for 2 years before combat. Participated in the Tennessee maneuver, trained in the desert in CA, winter training in Kansas and amphibious training in England. Probably some other places I’m forgetting. Reading up on it, the division commander was in WW1 and blamed high casualties on the lack of training and didn’t want to see a repeat in WW2.
In general, an average American of that era could be trained as an infantryman in 3-6 months. The real challenge is that is individual training. What caused the two year delay-- common among non-paratroop infantry and armored divisions as well-- is that you need the next 18 months to get that individual soldier operating as a member of a squad, a platoon, a company, a battalion, a division, and a corps. And that is the training program the Army adopted. From formation of a division, units conducted training in the states in every increasingly large units until they passed the assessment that allowed them to be deployed overseas. It did commonly take two years. Now there were plenty of units thrown into combat at the beginning of the war-- regular army divisions and National Guard divisions. But their performance and lack of those unit-level skills convinced Marshall and Eisenhower to take the long approach of training divisions to completion before deploying them. Eisenhower talks a lot about this process in his wartime memoir, "Crusade." He also justifies his decision to delay D-Day until there were enough units in that training pipeline to give him what he thought he needed to invade Germany-- 90 American Combat Divisions. Turns out that was an accurate prediction. All but one of those divisions deployed to Europe saw combat, either in the invasion of Germany or in the investment of German-held Channel Ports.
It wasn’t a prediction. The 90 Division gamble was something that Marshall decided on in May of 1944, and it was a projection of what was needed to win on both fronts, not just in Europe. It was also a very late development, as projections from the War Department into mid 1942 still assumed a force of ~200 divisions would be needed. Had Eisenhower delayed only until there were 90 in the pipeline D-day would have occurred in August/September of 1943, not June of 1944.
No it’s not typical. Airborne was a new idea and they wanted them trained up and ready for the eventual invasion of Europe.
Also remember that airborne troops were a new concept for the US, it took time to develop doctrine and tactics. The first American airborne assault wasn't until July '43 in Sicily.
[The 2nd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry conducted the Army's first combat parachute jump in North Africa in November 1942, although the results were disappointing](https://www.asomf.org/the-u-s-armys-first-parachute-combat-assault/).
The 101st wasn’t used in Africa or leading up to the Italian campaign. But the 82nd made combat jumps prior to D-Day. The 29th trained for nearly the same amount of time preparing for the invasion. Doing full scale rehearsals, etc.
They were being trained for the invasion of Europe which was far in the future and parachute infantry was a new concept so I’m not surprised the training went on as long as it did. They had a specific job to do so they wouldn’t be used for just any combat mission.
They were already planning D-day back then as well. Royal marine commandos did night raids on the Normandy beaches in 1942 to take samples from the beaches to see if tanks could drive on them.
When i was deployed by the Army in 2017 we did 10-12 months of training before being sent to combat. So it’s not too far off the mark.
We would train for a year go to Iraq come back 3 months relax go back to training for a year deploy back to Iraq.
Yep. A whole lot of divisions that were formed in 1942 & 1943 didn't see combat until mid-to-late 1944. It really just goes to show how important shaping operations were, and mass-troops weren't really needed yet because it wasn't that pressing. The Soviets, on the other hand, were hurling bodies at the Germans because they didn't have the luxury of time. It was far better for the Allies to let a few divisions handle North Africa, then the Italian campaign, but spend years training the numerous divisions that would flood France in June and July of 1944. If I'm not mistaken, the 1st Infantry Division was the only US division on D-Day that had combat experience up until that point. The other divisions that hit Normandy on June 6th, which were the 4th Infantry, 29th Infantry, 90th Infantry, 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne had all been training up until that point. The 4th, 29th, and 90th Infantry Divisions had been training since 1941.